"Big companies are busy hiring chief AI officers and setting up tiger teams to pilot agentic products. However, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman says this overlooks where automation actually pays off - in the "unglamorous layer" of day-to-day work. Speaking with AI engineer Parth Patil on his "Possible" podcast, Hoffman said a company's AI transformation involves employees "being able to talk to each other about it and do collective learning.""
""If people feel they'll get punished or judged for using AI, they become what Ethan Mollick calls 'secret cyborgs,' who quietly speed up their own work while the organization learns nothing," Hoffman wrote in a LinkedIn post. Mollick, an associate professor at Wharton, researches the effects of AI on work, entrepreneurship, and education. Companies have been ramping up investments in AI to boost efficiency and keep up with the AI race."
"Many big companies are trying to integrate new technology by running pilot schemes with a small, specialist group. Hoffman wrote on LinkedIn that they then expect "transformation to magically spread". "Unfortunately for that strategy, AI lives at the workflow level, and the people closest to the work know where the friction actually is," he said. Hoffman said automation should start at the coordination layer. Think meetings, note-taking, and tools that source company knowledge."
Many large companies hire chief AI officers and form specialist tiger teams to run pilot projects for agentic products. That approach overlooks where automation produces the largest gains: the unglamorous, day-to-day workflow layer. Workflow-level automation targets coordination tasks such as meetings, note-taking, and tools that surface company knowledge. Employees must be able to learn collectively and share usage openly to scale benefits. When workers fear punishment for using AI, they may become "secret cyborgs," accelerating individual work without organizational learning. Investment in AI continues to rise as firms pursue efficiency and competitiveness.
Read at Business Insider
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